


Stars

by qwanderer



Series: I don't deserve you. [2]
Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, An Footnote, Demon!Aziraphale, Fluff and Angst, Happy Ending, M/M, Mildly Dubious Consent, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-23
Updated: 2019-08-23
Packaged: 2020-09-24 09:56:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,537
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20356573
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/qwanderer/pseuds/qwanderer
Summary: It was more obvious now, in this form, that one could believe something wholeheartedly in one part of one’s mind, and in another part, know that the thing was quite ridiculous.It wasn’t that he’d never done it himself, as an angel, he realized. It was just that he always conveniently managed to not quite see that he was doing it.I’m here,he wanted to tell Crowley.I’m right here. Even when I’m somewhere else, I’m right here with you.Even if part of me doesn’t want to be.





	Stars

They’d done it. Stopped the Apocalypse. Earth was safe. 

In front of Aziraphale, the future stretched out again, releasing everything that had been crushed down so tightly. It left him dazed, not knowing which way to step.

Crowley led him to bed, and Zira acquiesced. He wasn’t quite sure how he felt about the concept of sleeping, himself. Crowley had described dreams to him and it seemed somehow out of order, to let one’s mind create whatever it wished, to believe whatever it could imagine, if only for brief moments. It seemed terribly out of control. Frightening. 

But Crowley was already dropping off, and Aziraphale felt a powerful need to guard the demon while he was so vulnerable. He brought out his wings and draped one protectively over Crowley. 

Aziraphale was so tired and so lost, and the world was safe, and Crowley breathed deeply next to him, looking as if with his loss of consciousness, he had been able to put aside everything that was difficult, worrying, weighty about everything they’d experienced over the last few days. 

The angel closed his eyes, and tried his best to follow. 

~✨~

Zira’s dreams were vivid and strange. Crowley was there, so close, made of sweet fire which burned him, burned him right up until he was nothing but ash and all Aziraphale wanted was to thank him. He dreamed of free-fall. Not knowing which way was up, and not caring. As if the end of the world had been the gravity that held him down and only now did he truly have the freedom of his wings. And he dreamed of wanting, without knowing exactly what it was he wanted. 

~✨~

The bed jolted under them as Crowley rose with a gasp. Aziraphale turned to see him, eyes tight shut, hugging himself hard. 

“Crowley?” he asked.

He prodded gently, rubbing Crowley’s back, and slowly it came out, the horror of the nightmare, of the Fall. The squabbling of the demons as they fought to gain a footing in their new, changed existence. 

Aziraphale wished he could make it better, somehow. 

Crowley seemed to steel himself. “Yes. Well. It's done and over with. Back to sleep.”

He looked so far from that peace, the putting away of worries that sleep had given him. He looked very much conscious of far too many things. Aziraphale lifted his other hand, to put it over one of Crowley’s. “My dear. You're still shaking.”

Aziraphale pushed. There had to be something he could do. Anything.

“Help me forget,” Crowley said quietly. 

“How?” Zira asked. 

Crowley’s hand turned under his, clutching, and the wanting from his own dream suddenly flared bright in recognition as Crowley said, “Touch me.”

“You mean…” Aziraphale trailed off, barely able to believe what Crowley was asking. But then Crowley pulled him close, and begged… and Aziraphale gave in.

Let his mind put down the weight he’d been carrying too long. Gave himself to free fall, and to Crowley.

~✨~

In the morning, when the reality of things returned, Aziraphale knew there would be a reckoning for everything he’d done that had gone against the will of Heaven. He knew that just because the world had ended, didn’t mean he was truly free. 

He knew that he should not have let go of all of his restraint so thoroughly, so abruptly. 

It wasn’t until after he’d been nabbed, when he stood Upstairs before the council of Archangels, that he had any inkling how serious it would be. It wasn’t until he bound his wings that he understood. This would be his last moment in Heaven. He’d lost his place here. 

As he fell, he wasn’t afraid. He didn’t want to Fall, but he heard Crowley’s voice in his head. “Not so bad, once you get used to it.” He didn’t want to be evil, but he remembered Crowley’s kindness, and knew it was not inevitable.

Crowley was everything that made him brave. And then he hit the surface. The impact was a boom of the Almighty’s voice, telling him why he had fallen. What he had done. What he had done to Crowley.

Aziraphale shattered. 

~✨~

_ Chaos. Legion. _

_ I… _

_ I? _

_ We? _

_ Too many. _

_ Up! Down! Light, dark! Motion! Flight. _

_ Pain. _

_ Oh, help. _

_ Wings are smaller than we remember, but. Yes. We remember wings. We remember flight. We can learn this. _

_ The eyes are not like we remember. There are too many. _

_ Well. We have had a lot of eyes before. But these are… everywhere. Zipping back and forth as we fly without any regard to organization. We are too many. _

_ Why are we many? Were we one, once? We think we were one. But we were torn apart. _

_ We don’t want to think about it. What else is there? _

_ A shape stands at the shore of the lake. Many of hims are curious, and go to investigate. _

_ We are still having trouble with our eyes, but moving together, focusing on one goal, helps. _

_ The figure is human-shaped, tall and lean, with big black wings. Two soft, feathered wings. Like we should have? _

_ We swarm closer, looking. _

_ Crowley! _

_ We… I… remember Crowley. _

_ Some of hims are sad. Some of hims are terribly, terribly guilty. Some of hims are hesitant. They don’t want to think about why. But most of hims are delighted to see Crowley, and one of him cannot wait to touch Crowley again, although many of hims disagree vehemently. _

_ The one of him lands on Crowley’s hand. _

_ They only realize Crowley’s expression had been dreadfully bleak when two slitted yellow eyes hone in on the one of him on Crowley’s hand, and the expression lightens, curiosity blooming. _

_ Crowley needs them. Half of hims can’t stay away, now, and they land everywhere they can, on his jacket, on his hair. _

_ The other half of hims cling to their guilt, and hover. The only reason they don’t argue overmuch with their counterparts is that the Sin cannot be done again, not now, not by these small bodies. _

_ They hear Crowley laugh brokenly, something like joy returning to his expression, and he. He remembers more of who he is, and why he is. _

~✨~

Over the next few days, he practiced the use of his new form, learning the shape… shapes? Of himself. Selves?

No, he had been shattered, but he was pulling himself together again. It took some contemplation, some sorting out of what he had done and who he was and what it all meant. 

He’d been an angel. He’d been supposed to do good. But he’d always been rather impulsive, overeager to help and then, in retrospect, realizing that the action he took may not have been wise. May, in fact, have caused harm, rather than help. 

He’d been rather rash, for an angel.

That had been his Downfall, in the end. That, and his attachment to earthly pleasures. 

He circled away from that dreadful subject again, the swarm leaving Crowley to focus elsewhere. Crowley gave a sad little pout, wondering aloud, “Are you even in there, angel?”

It was an interesting question. 

What was an angel, and what was he? Was he the same person he’d been, now that he was no longer an angel?

Could he be forgiven?

Crowley had said a demon couldn’t be, once. He wondered if he’d meant it.

Well.

The interesting thing about being a shattered mind in a plural body was that one could think and believe two completely opposing things at once. It was much more complex than being an angel, in many ways.

It was like the eyes. Angels were all built on generally the same pattern - a body, a head (although occasionally with more than one face), legs, arms, wings (as many as six), and eyes (potentially infinite).[1] As an angel, in his ethereal form, he had had many eyes, some on his head, like a human shaped being, some on his wings. The many eyes gave the ethereal shape more scope for looking at things.

But this was new. Having many bodies, many pieces of a mind, that gave one the opportunity for _ perspective _.

It was more obvious now, in this form, that one could believe something wholeheartedly in one part of one’s mind, and in another part, know that the thing was quite ridiculous.

It wasn’t that he’d never done it himself, as an angel, he realized. It was just that he always conveniently managed to not quite see that he was doing it.

_ I’m here, _ he wanted to tell Crowley. _ I’m right here. Even when I’m somewhere else, I’m right here with you. _

_ Even if part of me doesn’t want to be. _

~✨~

He learned to talk again, for Crowley. 

Then, he learned the horrible truth, that Crowley blamed himself for Zira’s fall. 

They got that straightened out, at least, even if it was difficult for Zira to speak of his sin. What he had done to Crowley. He needed to, though. He needed it to be clear between them that it was Zira’s mistake that had caused him to fall. He needed to apologize for taking advantage. For violating a boundary that should have remained unbreached.

It wasn’t even a little bit okay again until Crowley seemed to acknowledge what had happened, accepting it and setting it aside, until he said, “I always trust you, angel,” like things were going to go back to normal between them, even if everything else had changed. 

Then, it was a little bit okay again.

But still, everything had changed. Zira was fluttering about as a thousand tiny beetles. He carried sin on his soul, sin that had hurt Crowley.

“Do you know what Adam meant by saying that I’ll have a body when I want one?” he asked. “I don’t… not want a body.” That wasn’t quite true. Parts of him were still afraid of what he would do with one if he had one again. “I am accustomed to having a body,” he said instead.

“Well, you have one,” Crowley reminded him. “And it’s magnificent. A thousand twinkling lights. I didn’t think you could be more beautiful than how you looked before, but somehow, Zira, you manage.”

“Well, thank you! I have to say, as swarms of insects go, it’s not bad. Not bad at all. But…” He longed to touch Crowley with human hands again, even as the thought made him feel a little ill. “I would like a human body again. How did you get one? ...After?”

“I had that moment of clarity too, you know,” Crowley said with a sigh. “And afterwards I asked Her when I might be allowed to have hands again.”

“And did She answer?” Zira asked.

“‘You’ll have them when you want them.’ That was the last thing She said to me, after I’d fallen. The last question I asked that She answered.” The tone was contemplative, and now Zira could well understand the darker twist it had.

“How did it happen?” he asked. “What made you want, the way She meant it?”

“I saw you.”

The look in Crowley’s eyes echoed Zira’s desire to reach out, to touch. “Oh,” he said, hushed, daring to hope that it would be all right, some day, to touch like that again.

Then Crowley did reach out, fingers curling gently around several of Zira’s tiny bodies. He pulled his hand closer, looking at them. It was as if Crowley was trying to hold as much of Zira as he could, as close as he could. 

“I want the chance to say yes to you properly, Zira,” he said. “It might not have been the best first time, but I sure as heaven don’t want it to be our only time.”

Zira had too many bodies, too many minds, too many perspectives. But, he supposed, the perspective that mattered most, at this moment was Crowley’s.

Crowley could have anything from Zira that he wanted. 

Zira took a breath with human lungs, held onto Crowley’s hands with human hands, and said, “All right.” 

The joy in Crowley’s face, and the way he was suddenly being held close in Crowley’s arms, told Zira everything he really needed to know.

Well. There were a few other questions he had, too.

“Will I have to do much evil now?” Zira asked. “Will Hell come after me if I fail to do my infernal duty?”

Crowley just laughed lightly. “Don’t worry, angel,” he said. “I’ll show you how to fudge your reports.”

~✨~

Their second time together was sweet and slow and nothing short of miraculous, but that is another story. What you need to know now is that afterwards, Crowley stretched lazily and shifted into being a snake, so he could drape himself over Zira and bask in the pleasing curves of his body more effectively.

“Oh, my dear,” Zira said, stroking his scaly back, “you are lovely like this. Until yesterday, I hadn’t seen you in this form for so long. Not since the Beginning.”

“I didn’t want to be a demon,” Crowley admitted. “Now it’s all right, though.”

“Why?” Zira asked, although he had his suspicions.

Crowley’s tiny forked tongue flicked the skin of Zira’s cheek, and he spoke in a quiet hiss. “If you can Fall, it must not mean anything terribly bad.”

“Hmm.” Zira wasn’t quite sure how he felt about that, not right now.

“And you make it look so beautiful,” Crowley continued. 

“So do you, my love,” Zira said. “You always have. I’ve missed your scales, ever since I saw them in Eden. The sheen of them. The way they sparkle. I miss your eyes, when you cover them.”

Crowley was silent for a long time, and Zira had already concluded that he wasn’t going to answer when he hissed softly, “I believe you.”

Zira snuggled him close.

Maybe having fallen really wasn’t so bad, if it could make Crowley believe that he was beautiful, just as he was.

~✨~

The next day, serpent and glowing swarm played hide-and-seek in the plant room. Zira giggled every time one of his tiny bodies encountered part of Crowley unexpectedly. 

“Is this why you keep the plants?” Zira asked as they concluded their game, curling up in a neat pile under the broad leaves of one of the largest specimens. “To explore them in different forms?”

“Nah, to be honest, I’ve never really done this before,” Crowley answered. “It’s nice. Would be better in a real garden, fresh air, grass and things. More room to spread out.”

Zira contemplated that for a moment.

“Let’s get a house,” he said. “A country cottage. With a garden.”

He wasn’t sure if Crowley looked startled, paralyzed at the prospect, or if that was just the way his face looked in this form. But then Crowley unfroze, slumping into a wider, lower mass of coils in the dirt of the big pot, taking up most of the space. 

“Yeah,” he said softly. “‘D like that.”

~✨~

As much as Zira enjoyed his new form when it meant he could spend time with the serpent Crowley without Crowley feeling self-conscious, there were several things he enjoyed doing that really did require having a human corporation.

Notably, many of these things took place in Crowley’s bed, with Crowley, with a lot of human skin on either side. Which was perfectly incredible. But having a human form again still felt strange to him. Not quite right. Even like this, with a naked Crowley curled tight against his side.

As far as he could tell, his human body was pretty much like the one he remembered having, as an angel. Soft, round, dotted with pale, pale hair. He hadn’t yet ventured to use a mirror.

“Do you think I should still look this way?” he asked Crowley. “The way I did as an angel? You changed, didn’t you?”

“Not much,” Crowley said, and his eyes (he didn’t cover them much anymore, not with Zira) darted to and from Zira’s face, as if he wanted to look but didn’t want to be seen looking. “You’ve changed. Your eyes…” Crowley trailed off.

“Are they different?” Zira wasn’t sure if he dreaded a yes, or took a kind of perverse pleasure in the possibility of sharing even more with his serpent, when he asked, “Are they like yours?”

“No,” Crowley said. His voice was low and reverent and just a little distant, as if he were standing back to view a vast masterpiece. “They’re like they were, but... deeper. They glow a little greener, when they sparkle.”

“Ah,” Zira said. He was, honestly, trying not to be disappointed.

“You wanted something else?” Crowley asked, a little laughter in his voice.

“I feel as if I should look much more different. I feel very different.” Zira manifested some firefly bodies and set them to rest in his hair. Immediately he felt as if he was once again shaped properly for the soul he contained. 

“Ah,” he said. “Yes, that seems more like it.”

“I’ve always wondered why that’s a demon thing,” Crowley commented, curling tight around Zira, hiding his face in Zira’s neck as he spoke, but not hiding his little snake tattoo. It always seemed a little more alive than ink should, but at this moment it felt even more so. “Creatures on our heads. Besides that it just feels right. Have we got a poet in our number now? Someone who can explain it?” His fingers teased at Zira’s hair, and the fireflies teased his fingers in return.

“...I’m all in pieces,” Zira said slowly. “And it’s not like a wound, not anymore. It’s how I am. I know things, and feel things, and think things that are more comfortable not sharing the same body with each other. And yet I don’t want to give any of them up. It’s not harmonious; it’s not heavenly; it’s demonic. I know what I did was wrong, and yet I don’t regret it. And yet again, I do. I know I was selfish, I know I put our immediate, instinctual needs above the integrity of what we are to each other at heart. Which is the most important thing in my existence. But the impulse that led me to do it anyway is still part of me. And yet it’s too animalistic to want to live in a human body.” Zira squirmed. “I don’t know. Did that make any sense at all?”

“It does,” Crowley murmured. “It sounds true.” His voice held a hint of wonder.

“Did you feel like that?” Zira asked, running fingers through Crowley’s hair in turn. “Broken into pieces?” His fingers traced the curves of the tattoo.

Crowley made a noise, unsure and thoughtful and softly pained. 

“I was always a bit torn,” he said. “Falling didn’t much change how I saw things. I was made to hang the stars, to see all the potential the darkness held. I always… saw more than I thought I should’ve, really. Saw too big of a picture. But yeah, I never quite fit in the skin of an angel. Always wanted to stretch out a little, somehow. The serpent I ended up with after I fell was every part of me that didn’t quite fit into the life of an angel, and for a while I thought that that was all I was, that I’d lost the rest. But then I saw you standing on that wall, and I thought, there is an angel who I could be at least a little like.”

“Oh,” Zira said softly.

“You’re so beautiful,” Crowley said, looking at his face now, drinking it in. “Is it all right if I think you’re even more beautiful now?”

“Yes, my dear,” Zira said, smiling, though somehow he felt like crying too. “That’s perfectly all right.”

“You’ve got a halo of twinkling lights lighting up your hair. It’s better than angelic. It’s… full to bursting. fractal. Kintsugi. ...Human.”

“You make it sound so appealing.”

“It is,” Crowley insisted. “Before you were something I wanted to reach for, but something I knew I could never touch. Now I want to drown myself in you. You’re right here with me. You’re within reach.”

Zira wasn’t sure how he felt about that. He’d loved Crowley for so long. He’d never seen the demon as below him, even when he was still certain he should.

“I’ve always been within reach,” he said awkwardly.

Crowley's reply was soft as a whisper. "No, you really haven’t."

Zira didn’t quite know why.

~✨~

It was a long time later before Zira began to really understand.

He’d done some tempting now, just a little thing here and there. Getting people to overindulge, in food, in shopping, just a little more of this or that couldn’t hurt, he told people. It could, he knew, but, well. Someone had to present them with the choice.

He was beginning to see it as a proper responsibility.

The two of them had bought a cottage on the south downs, one with a big garden. Crowley spent most of his time out there, and although the angel-Zira-had-been would have more than likely wanted to stay indoors with his books more often than not, the demon Zira came to love the garden almost as much as Crowley did.

There was a sweet little wooden bench swing, suitable for two human-shaped people to sit side by side, and sometimes they did that, but more often than not, Crowley turned snake and slithered up to sit in the pear tree, and Zira, all fireflies, flitted about in the warm, dark shadows with him. 

It did feel better, Zira thought, to be demon-shaped together. To inhabit the darkness side-by-side, and be neither of them angels.

On the other hand, there was also something nice about being human-shaped, and sitting on that bench swing as the sun set, hands tangled together. 

When they’d moved, there had of course been a certain amount of shuffling around and prioritizing. Plants that could thrive in an English climate got relegated to the garden. Books, of course, monopolized many of the indoor spaces, and most of Crowley’s art objects found places indoors, but his stone sculptures had not. So in easy view in front of them where they sat on the swing was a statue of good and evil (in the form of two human-shaped winged beings) wrestling, with evil triumphing.

One evening, the two of them sat on the bench and watched the sun set. Zira noticed the way the shapes of the statue seemed to shift as the light withdrew. The way the sky seemed to fill up with stars. 

He threaded his fingers in between Crowley’s as he watched it all. 

“What are you thinking about?” Crowley asked, his voice fond and knowing. 

“Good and evil wrestling with evil triumphing,” Zira said. “..It’s not really what it seems, is it?”

“Well, you know it’s not what I think of when I look at it,” Crowley said with a lascivious grin.

“I’m not talking about the statue,” Zira said, but he said it with a chuckle, and a stroke of his fingers across Crowley’s. 

“You’re not?” Crowley asked, curious.

“Well, I am, and I’m not. No, I mean. When I first saw it, I still had some silly thoughts that perhaps Good was good and Evil was evil and that was that. That the image of the demonic triumphing over the angelic was your taunting me with the prospect of something I could never allow to actually occur. But when I look at it now…”

Crowley didn’t make any smart remarks this time, just waited patiently for Zira to continue, watching his face. 

“I look at the stars and I think, there’s so much light, out there, beyond the boundaries of what Heaven knows. And when I see a demon wrestling and subduing heaven, I think, _ good _. Night needs to fall once in a while. There’s so much light out there. So many little flames that Heaven never gets to see, because they only stand in the sun.”

Crowley hummed in response, and leaned closer to Zira, settling in against his side like a snake seeking heat. 

“I like that,” he said. “I like the way you make being a demon sound.”

“I like… being a demon,” Zira said, and was a little surprised to find that it was the truth. Not an unreserved truth, he had other minds about it, but that was part of being a demon. He sighed contentedly and settled against Crowley, looking back up at the stars. “I feel as though, when heaven was taken from me, what I got in return was the universe. The night sky. This quiet garden, and all the stars, and - you. And, oh, Crowley.”

Zira felt tears on his cheeks. He wasn’t sure when he’d started crying. 

Crowley just reached up to wipe away his tears, and was, again, so patient. So kind.

“I don’t…” Zira said, and then stopped and took a breath, starting again. “I’d make the trade all over again, except.”

All Crowley did in response was to make an encouraging sound. And something in Zira broke all over again.

He sobbed.

“None of this is worth having hurt you. Having done what I did to you. And I."

His words came out in gasps, and he was wrapped up safe in Crowley's arms, Crowley's hands stroking up and down his back, and for a moment it was too much, Crowley was too good for him.

"I don’t deserve you." He wailed it, and kept crying, and Crowley was there still, holding him. Not letting him tear away the way he halfway wanted to.

"You do."

The words were so soft, so earnest.

"I don’t," Zira said, sniffing.

Crowley hummed. "Maybe neither of us deserves the other," he offered instead. "But we both want each other, and maybe that's more important. Zira. I’d trade all the stars for you in a heartbeat. I can’t judge you. I don’t know if anyone can, short of Her, and I may not agree with Her judgement anyway. I don’t know what 'deserve' means. But the fact is, you have me. And you always will."

"Oh, Crowley." It was a sort of a sigh, both hopeless and contented. "I think… maybe I am starting to understand."

And maybe they hadn’t been within each other’s reach. Maybe they had been standing just that few steps too far apart to ever truly be what they wanted to be together. 

"I feel the same. If you want me, you'll have me. Always."

They clung to each other, and watched the stars. And maybe part of each of them was glad not to be perfect, so they could see the beauty in the cracks where the universe was put together a little askew.

_ Though my soul may set in darkness, it will rise in perfect light _

~✨~

[1]Most other physical features of angels that have been recounted over the years - i.e. haloes, enormous wheels, being surrounded by clouds of fire - tend to boil down to the brightness of the angel’s aura causing visual distortions. 

Although in some cases, it’s simply because the angel has an oddly large, rounded head, metaphysically speaking. This, of course, explains Gabriel.


End file.
